7 Online shopping roadblocks

Emily | 07/10/2012

You’ve got great supplier agreements in place, found the perfect payment service provider and invested oodles of money in Google Adwords to be found. Your webshop should be making a killing, right? If it’s not, perhaps the customer experience is to blame. Here are 7 elements you should consider: 7 online shopping roadblocks

1. This website looks dodgy to me...

If your web design isn’t of the latest fashion, doesn’t look reliable, is too cluttered or contains too many audio and visual distractions, your credibility is out the door. No trust = no sale.

2. Can't find what I'm looking for! Bye-bye.

E-tailers with an extensive product offering should make it as easy as possible for customers to search and find what they’re looking for. If the customer can’t find a suitable product after two attempts,they’re going to assume you just don’t sell it. Tough luck.

3. Weird; I can’t find answers to common questions.

The majority of your customers are going to want similar information. They want to know more aboutguarantee and refund policies, delivery times, destinations and costs, product fact sheets, sizing charts, pricing etc.They expect it to be somewhere on your website. No knowledge base? No sale.

4. No support details? Won't try my luck here!

There are always going to be questions outside the usual remit, and if the customer has to click around to find support details - or even worse, if he can’t find any - they’re simply going to click away from your site. Today’s customers want different methods to reach out – phone, live chat, and email – and the more immediate the response you can provide, the better.

5. You want to know my date of birth? Dream on.

Enable people to purchase as a guest. Sometimes they want anonymity, don’t want their details available for marketing purposes, or just don’t have the time to complete a personal profile.

6. I can't pay by credit card? So long!

Great, you’ve taken care of the previous five elements. But when it comes to payment, your customer's preferred method isn’t available. It's all about the money...

7. Can't amend details during checkout... Very, very tiring.

Ever wanted to make last-minute changes to your order, and finding that the system forced you to abandon everything and go through the whole process again? I bet you didn’t bother to repeat the purchase steps. Learn from this: allow your customers to be as flexible as you are!